Spencer West LLP

James is a corporate lawyer with over 20 years’ PE, VC and M&A experience having acted for corporates, management teams and institutional clients including PE houses and VCs on all sizes of transactions.

A significant amount of James’ practice covers domestic and (increasingly) cross-border M&A technology transactions (often acting for US acquirers of UK shares and assets having previously spent 6 years based in Silicon Valley), corporate reorganisations as well as working on many venture capital funding rounds (both company side and investor side). He also has a strong track record in advising startups and early stage businesses particularly assisting with their fundraisings and their access to capital (in particular through his investor connections in the UK and US)and helping numerous companies scale to the US.

James has provided key support for a number of technology industry events and organisations over the years including Silicon Valley Comes to the UK (SVC2UK), Digital Boost and Global Tech Advocates / Tech London Advocates (James sits on the Advisory Board of both).

James's recent VC deals / company side 

Multiple funding rounds for fast growth insurtech business. Acting for Peckwater Brands on their £15m series A round. Acting for market leading data analytics company on their recent series B funding round. Acting for market leading FBA aggregator on multiple debt and equity rounds. Acting for Karma Kitchen on the (up to) £100m investment from Crosstree Partners.

Larger corporates / M&A 

Acting for a global gaming company on a number of matters following a recent private equity investment into the company. Acting for FTSE 250 supplier of building products to the UK construction industry. Acting for Peckwater Brands on their acquisition of Honest Food Company’s operations in four countries. Acting on the sale of Doodle Learning to Clearlake Capital-backed Discovery Education. Acting for a large US life sciences company on its asset acquisition of a UK IVF business. Acting for US digital media company Goodway Group Inc on its UK acquisition of Canton Marketing Solutions. Advising e-scooter sharing company Zwings on its sale to Ireland’s largest micro-mobility company Zeus Scooters

VC / institutional 

Acting for global technology venture capital firm on investments out of new fund. Acting for venture capital firm that invests in high growth consumer brand business on multiple transactions. Acting for AP Ventures on their recent investment into electric and fuel cell vehicle systems integration company Hypermotive. Acting for Bowe Group on their $8.2m investment round into robot software innovator MOV.AI. Acting for leading European tech VC Lakestar on the $40m funding round into consumer intelligence platform company Streetbees. Acting for venture capital fund manager and private investment network on various funding rounds.